It's sad to see the coin being renamed to a brand that already has patents filed on it... moreover that is also an existing coin that's been here a while.
Those are some of the reasons why I decided to empty my DRK stash and move on. It's kind of a slap in the face for the early DRK people.
Anybody would happen to know the filing number of the challenge application? Would be interesting to see.
Not worrying about the legal stuff as Fernando and a couple others on the foundation board are lawyers. As for dashcoin, the slimball is their dev who sold the github to Evan. Evan did nothing wrong. If that community wants to fork the coin and still call it dashcoin or whatever that is fine. We are not rebranding to dashcoin anyway.
As for the actual rebrand,
DASH was originally suggested by the community and since the annoucement the vast majority have rallied around the name. Of course some people will be upset like you or Vertoe and decide to sell.
Actually, I feel bad for the long time holders that are not showing enough foresight to keeping holding. After all the coin fundamentals have not changed and now we are much more marketable. There is a good chance that long time holders who are selling now just because of a name change will be very very upset with themselves in a year or two's time.
I bought my first DASH back in February 2014 right after the name was changed from Xcoin to Darkcoin... I was very attached to the name. But after reading story after story after story from the hardworking people trying to increase adoption all saying that the name is holding us back I decided that my loyalty to the name was just a silly, emotional personal problem. In the end, as an investor I want to see my investment increase -- and if that means getting over my personal attachment to the name and suffering short term losses due to uncertainty in the market then so be it...
With a heavy heart I accepted Evan's decision to ditch the name Darkcoin (one of the best fucking growing brands I came across in my investment life) but have closed MN and sold all of my coins nevertheless. I did it at the recent price peak and used that calamity to get out of all crypto holdings I had (granted, only BTC and DRK) i order to re-evaluate my thinking and future approach. Any sort of mess is always a negative for the underlying investment. Frankly, I am surprised and relieved the price did not plummet which tells me there's enough support for the technology left...
So, I nibbled a tiny little bit and bought back some Darkcoins, just to feel I am still a part of it, but herein comes my ongoing dilemma.
A part of what?
If you'd read
Bitcoin: Technical Background and Data Analysis study done by the Anton Badev and Matthew Chen of the Finance and Economics Discussion Series Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. you'll see that even a stalwart that's bitcoin did not really penetrate and much less disturbed payment system. Most of the bitcoins are used for either investment i.e. stay in the wallets or are traded on exchanges. Let me quote parts of the study I find quite relevant for this discussion:
"Our analysis suggests half of these transactions involve less than U.S.$100 equivalent, and for the period for which we have data for Satoshi Dice, most of these small-value transactions were related to the online gambling service. Relatively less frequent large value transactions drive the average transaction value to levels above U.S.$40,000.00 equivalent value, and are not likely to involve payments for goods and services.
Comparing the number of transactions recorded on the blockchain and the total number of transactions reported by the exchanges, we see that the majority of transactions on the Bitcoin network occur through exchanges.
Broadly speaking, our empirical exercise documents general patterns of Bitcoin usage, and examines the use of Bitcoin for investment and payment purposes. We found that the number of daily users may have doubled every eight months, the transaction volume is negligible compared to the domestic volume of U.S. payment systems. Our analysis of data from the Bitcoin system further suggests that Bitcoin is still barely used for payments for goods and services.
The number of bitcoin unique users reached close to 100,000 by the beginning of 2014."
Even the stalwart of crypto, bitcoin is still used on the lunatic fringes of society and Darkcoin was / is the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe.
To dream and hope re-branded Darkcoin would suddenly awake an Average Joe as someone has said on this forum is a pure nonsense at worst and wishful thinking at best. This equally nonsensical "DASH," already mired in so many Trademark related issues, is so bland, so lukewarm, so devoid of wit, passion, message that it blows my mind away anyone could seriously consider it. And yes, I get it, it has been seriously considered by many serious people here, over on DRT, in Ambassador room etc., but what it shows me is:
a) a lack of courage;
b) willingness to appease while there's no one to really be appeased (some exchanges said they "might" accept Darkcoin if it changes its name, same with several merchants who also might adopt it but are "not guaranteeing" anything;
c) a lack of vision. "DASH" wants to be everything for everyone while, again, no one fucking cares but us, on the lunatic fringes.
I, for one, had managed to have several friends invest, into Darkcoin I brought in a Python programming genius to look at and promote Darkcoin and have been very active on developing several ideas based on Darkcoin's unique properties. Now everything is on hold for there is NO MESSAGE. Sure, some cute graphs / animations about Dash are really good, but who cares? You think the merchants, seeing 40,000 other merchants accepting Bitcoin will now suddenly flock to DASH because it is so fucking cool?
No, they are not (see the study about bitcoin adoption).
Darkcoin, as the fantastic brand, should have been left alone, to grow among the lunatic fringes of societies, it should have been offered to Occupy where anonymity is needed, it should have been a part of Wikileaks, it should have grown among the people that fight for privacy, for our right to property, to our right to be anonymous when we want to be, it should've been a part of Tor, and it should've been a tool to help us fight for our freedom. And all over the world the people live in a much more oppressive societies than ours (USA or any other Western country) where we still have some wealth and some illusion of freedom, and them, in communist, totalitarian, murderous countries would've benefited greatly form what Darkcoin offers. It would've been an instrument for the said freedom. It would have a fucking stance, it would've been a contender
Now some "DASH" wants to be everything for everyone because "the technology is the same." And the very technology - its anonymous features - will be so viciously attacked when the time is right and the Overlords unleash their dogs, from the law enforcement, from the mass-media etc,. that would spook that non-existent user, "Average Joe" so much that he will never ever consider buying his six pack with Darkcoin again.
At this moment I think Darkcoin / Dash is at 50% - 50% of surviving. One serious price dump, another developer or two exit, an exchange that said "maybe" to Dash now says no and the Dash and its community are a joke, because they have acted "preemptively" when no real need for preventing anything had existed and the Dash would dash away back to obscurity.
Ditching Darkcoin name was akin to ditching Darkcoin's philosophy for the vain hope Dash would attract Average Joe. And to conclude: I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong and for Dash to become a brand associated with digital cash and a perfect payment system saving billions in remittance fees all over the world.
But a stance-less product that wants to please everyone when it is clearly impossible does not excite me anymore.
